Penman Lounge – Page 34 – FREESTYLEVISION

The Defining Silence ~ in memory of Kenneth Koch

Could be the enclosed garden
Just before the humming birds arrive.

The pause when the raised voices
Have said all & drained the air of peace.

The restraint & halt as Monk’s hands
Briefly stop above the keys.

The edge reached as one foot
Holds above the precipice.

Cage’s 4.33
And hearing the aftermath.

The physical walk that overrides
The walk out of your head.

The pen above the page
As the mind empties, lets go.

The t.v. with the sound off
As we entertain each other on the floor.

The just before.

I Still Feel

Your hand
on the small of my back
I still feel
it’s imprint
the electrical spark
How you turned
my legs
to water
I still catch my breath
at the memory
of that first touch
Your eyes locked
on mine
as we kissed
that first time
Tingling
Trembling
I still feel
your mouth on me
taking
giving
I still feel…
You…

2009 copyright catherine anne hayes

A History of Violence

As you shake your head,
He jumps across a stretcher
In a bombed out home,
Violence, Violence,
Everything is violence
Cries the teacher.

Armies come and go and wander in between
Finding cities to sack
Women to rape
Children to enslave
Blood to spill again and again
When does it end you ask?

He laughs,
Violence, Violence,
Everything is Violence!

You were brought into this world with violence,
With violence you were formed,
With violence you were expelled,
With violence you were made to breathe
With violence you were behaved,
Prevented from committing more violence.

Look at the line of people,
They march and seem
To be peaceful,
But they march to hold the reins
To whip and pull
Leading men where they want.

They spill no blood now,
But will one day,
As dreams are worth nothing
Without violence.
Violence by itself is a nightmare,
Violence with a dream is progress.

Your whole world is built on a web of violence,
With violence against mother earth you are fed,
With violence against the poor you are housed,
With violence against the brown you have land,
With violence against children you are not questioned,
It just is, but is it just?

Hah! He continues to laugh,
Winding down a staircase,
A light in his hand burning off the night,
Violence, Violence
Everything is violence!

Indiscretion

I.
The sun still
counts
minutes

With shadows grazing
the bridge
of your nose

Your irises
rest in
the shade
of two o’clock

A lone bird
demands attention
at the tip of
a solar flare.

Ringlets tousle
in a head pivot
Suddenly it is six

The white ring
on your itching wrist
darkens

There is no
marker
of his indiscretion
upon your body
of indiscretion

II.
…a turquoise shoe
dangles from your pinky toe
scarred
by the journey
of rough education
it dangles
dangerously
above the ocean
with expectation

the moon goes black
comes back
yo-yos
and returns
as a cat eye

the shoe waits for a nudge
for a final thought
that douses
love letters
with lighter fluid

You contemplate the heel
nearly snapped
in the taxi door

The black smudge
of his clumsiness
when he couldn’t hear
the music
He could never
hear
the music
never listened
.

to your body

The rum he spilled
on your anxious leg
ran down and inside
the sole
At the Christmas
party where you bit
your nails
pretending
he was better

He alternated
adoring and forgetting
flattering and upsetting
dancing with
and trampling you.

Inciting you to speak
to show
that
you were smart
Interrupting you
so they wouldn’t
know how smart

He ripped your dress
passed out
never hearing your
dream time breath

The shoe falls
Sun swords pierce waves
the splintered pier
shimmies
shoe won’t sink.

The passive man
Sits numbing himself with whiskey
Bleary eyes reflect greyhounds running in circles.
He asks the bartender to turn the volume up.
He wonders where you went,
Why you always seem angry,
And what time it is.

The Lazarus Phenomenon

One shave and you’re
Back in the world,
Two blades rub
Against your face
In a metallic imitation
Of the kiss you miss,
Luckily it’s all electric,
Your hand trembles too much
To hold a naked razor
Against your jugular.

Now you’re the gardener again,
Taking care of yourself,
She would be proud, only
If she was standing in the threshold,
Her face looking back in the mirror
Like a painter placed
Inside his creation, observing himself.

Before you were alive,
But not awake, the world
Had its way with you
And let time sit on your face
To conjure up a brush
Sweeping everyone away.

The engine growls,
The first music you have heard,
And the best, sound independent
Of any passion, of love lost,
It tells you that the bills are paid
And the fuse box is working,
Small joys you had a hand in.

Gently, you are reminded
That there is still creation,
There is time to carve a mask
Or to liberate a chin for the world to see,
Time will bury you soon enough
You can take a moment
To climb out and walk around
Before the gravedigger notices you’re gone,
Your Delilah wanted you to grow these hairs,
She wants to hide how you looked,
She’s done with that man.

Bring him back, bring him out,
And parade him under her window,
Let her know who’s she missing,
Risen from the dead and taking no prisoners,
Including her, you’re harmless,
But she doesn’t know that,
Let her be afraid, thinking of those blades
And what they’re capable of cutting.

One shave and you’re
Back in the world,
Welcome son, and stand
Before the mirror,
Watch your hairs falling
Like black snow
Remember to trim the bushes
Sprouting from the nostrils,
She never liked the sight of them.

Soupcon

along the lines
the grace notes

come on
in light rain

shimmering window
too ragged the beat

repeats strong
amongst chords held

in falling versions
finding home

in fragments
assembled into song

Non Prescription Color Contact Lenses, or Beautiful Eyes for Everyone

Tonight, after supper, the dome of the sky will open in sections
Watch the photons swarm the entryways
the exitways

All the unborn infants have shopping lists
There’s an inflammation of naked mole rats in the turnstile

A man at a booth on the sidewalk wants to sell
a pair of scissors to snip at the excess of this day
to reuse the strips of Wednes-,Tues-, and Satur-
as tickets to an exhibit for an installation of barbed wire piano strings
suspending a pastiche marionette who plays Ella—
a man-made cubist and a hobbyhorse of a surgeon
who historically deems the appendix as unnecessary

The shoulderless sun can carry the world
The heart of the world is weightless from this window
and all it wants is your body

You can go there
with your cart of hot dogs and scarves that gravity craves

I try to kiss your feet once in awhile
You try to touch your toes
and ask,
What do we put underneath this?

I love handfuls

anything with a shape
breaks, my empty shelter
collapses, my inefficient transport,
its gliterry paint
chips. From underneath my chin
I look indifferently
upon the crumbling
angles of yourself appall
at that indifference–detectable
only with a mirror. In and out of geometries
we inhabit, we traverse
our luster smears, but the kindle and hum
is someone else entirely.

Choices Changes and Charges

Show your true colors from the GATE
Because I really DiSPiSE the one’s who are FAKE
Thought I knew you, it was all a DREAM
HA u didn’t have what it takes couldn’t make the TEAM

To Aunt Stella

To Aunt Stella
I remember as a little girl seeing you standing
with your arms filled with Birds of Paradise
Your smile as bright as your eyes.
I bubbled with joy…
“Aunt Stella!” burst from my lips as I ran to you
and then I was in your arms smothered in flowers…
all those years ago…
Precious is this memory and other memories too
that I have always held in my heart
and always will.
Things change…
Time marches on..
and unfortunately distance happens…
but loving never stops.
You are gone now
but no matter what
and no matter what happened
you are still a part of me
and in my loving heart.
God Speed Aunt Stella…

forever dance with Uncle Eddie amongst the stars.